Education and Work-Experience - Influence On The Performance PDF
Education and Work-Experience - Influence On The Performance PDF
Education and Work-Experience - Influence On The Performance PDF
e-ISSN: 2278-487X, p-ISSN: 2319-7668. Volume 16, Issue 5. Ver. III (May. 2014), PP 104-110
www.iosrjournals.org
Abstract: This study investigated the different performance levels of the workers in the Chittoor Sugar factory
located at the Chittoor town of South India. It was also studied how the factors education and work experience
influence the performance levels of the workers in the firm. Upon study it has been understood that the two
variables under investigation have direct effect on the performance of the workers to varying degrees. Workers
in the medium range on educational qualification perform better compared those in the extremes and the same
holds good in the case of work experience as well.
Keywords: Education, Work-Experience, Influence, Performance, Workers
I. Introduction
According to the common perception the educated people can do certain tasks easily and efficiently
compared to the uneducated or those who are educated lesser. This is in accordance with the dictum ‟knowledge
is power‟. It implies that a person who is knowledgeable can perform better at tasks that require that knowledge.
Let aside the tasks that require the specialized knowledge but even the common tasks educated people can
handle better. In fact lack of education and knowledge make a person crippled and inefficient. Here, education
does not imply the formal college diplomas but, the mere knowledge of it. Though a person might not have
diplomas but, the possession of knowledge will make him efficient (Van Vugt, 2006).
The same hold good in the case of a skilled or experienced worker. A worker having good experience
in his job can become a leader due to his special gift of experience he acquired during the course of his work.
This gives him an expert power (Andrew, 2009) and hence dependable and he is more efficient too due to the
tacit (Polanyi, 1966) knowledge he has. This is in accordance to the common adage „practice makes a man
perfect‟.
The aim of this research is to investigate the influence of education and work experience on the
performance of the workers in the Chittoor Sugar factory located at the Chittoor town of South India.
(Taleghani et al., 2011). Ahmadi et al., claim (2012) that there is a significant relationship between human
capital and new product development performance.
Amiri et al., (2011) point out that learning at an individual level enhances human capital, that group
learning increases social capital, and that organizational learning enhances structural capital. The human capital
has been defined as the combined knowledge, skill, innovativeness, and ability of the organization‟s employees
to meet the task at hand Bontis (2000). Roos et al., (2001) stated that human capital comprises of competence,
skills, and intellectual agility of the individual employees. According to Stewart (2003) the human capital as
“the capabilities of individuals required to provide solutions to customers” and according to Stewart the human
capital is the cream of the intellectual capital. Gruian has the view (2011) that the human capital refers to the
knowledge, skills and abilities of employees, i.e. professionalism, efficiency and effectiveness in improving
business productivity. Allameh et al. (2010) points out that the human capital refers to the abilities,
competences, and know-how of human resources. Ngah and Ibrahim (2009) point is that human capital can be
divided into three dimensions: capability and potential, motivation and commitment and innovation and
learning.
Ngah and Ibrahim (2011) state that human capital of one organization to another organization is totally
different and that makes it difficult to imitate, difficult to copy, rare and non-replaceable. In the words of
Handzic and Ozturk (2010) “the human capital is the major strength of institutions or organizations to prosper”.
Zambon claim that (2002) human capital is not owned by the organization, it is only rented for the period the
employees spend in the organization. Human capital goes with individual when he or she leaves the organization
or institution according to Sharabati et al. (2010).
Van Vugt (2006) states that: „In ancestral environments, some situations required the possession of
unique and specialized knowledge, for example, where to find a waterhole that has not yet dried up. Knowledge
about where to go would have been more likely to be held by older or experienced individuals” and thus
experience will make a person perform better and hence dependable. In the present time, evidence for this
link between knowledge, experience and performance can still be found in professions that require a
considerable amount of specialized knowledge and experience, such as in science, politics, and arts (Van Vugt,
2006). The study (Mujtaba and Kaifi, 2008), shows that Afghan leaders have higher scores on the relationship
orientation which relates to better performance. This indicates that the leaders with some specialized knowledge
or skill in psychology can perform better as leaders. On his study on the school principals, Nusbuga (2009)
claims that education and experience brings about a change in the leadership attitudes and hence performance.
Cagle (1988) has regarded experience and education as factor that determine the leadership style and
performance. Katozai (2005) argued that knowledge is a chief weapon that makes a person effective as a leader
and therefore a leader should be educated, experienced and qualified. Nsubuga (2009) concluded that unless
principals are well equipped with knowledge and skills in management and leadership, they would not be
effective.
Apart from the professional and academic knowledge, it is commonly believed that experience might
play important roles on the performance of individuals. In many cultures, the myth is that as people get wiser
due to more exposure and experience. For example in African culture, experience is considered as a priority for
leadership positions in different organizations (Ahiazu, 1989). Trompenaars (1993) viewed that leadership styles
and performance of individual differ from culture to culture and country to country depending upon life patterns,
beliefs and value system or otherwise on the knowledge and experience of the people.
Finally from the work of Belal A. Kaifi, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba (2010) on their study on Afghans and
Americans, they had concluded that - education and experience – indeed have their impact on the performance
of individuals. Hence, it was considered very important to investigate the influence of experience and
educational qualification on the leadership styles of the workers and therefore the investigation was carried out.
4. 2 Data Collection
For the purposes of this research, the questionnaire was used to gather the necessary information. In an
attempt to make it beneficial for both the researcher and the firm, and so as not to disrupt operations at the firm,
the researcher visited the firms frequently and collected the data from the respondents (the managers or
supervisors of the employees) by giving the questionnaires during the firm‟s lunch break time.
The performance questionnaire was given to the supervisors or managers of the employees to rate the
worker‟s performance by scoring each individual question on the questionnaire on a scale from 1 to 5. While the
respondents answer the questionnaire, if they find any difficulty or ambiguity the researcher attended them to
solve their problem and got the needed data. Each rater was allowed a period of half an hour for the completion
and return of the questionnaires.
Another important point is that, majority of the workers are not good at English language. So, the
questionnaire involved in this study was translated in to the mother tongue of the workers, the Telugu language
so that to make their task easier. In this way the need data was collected from the firms by the researcher
personally present with the respondents and this data collection took a period of over a month.
processes: planning for performance, compacting, managing performance, measuring performance, and
developing and encouraging performance.
The performance appraisal instrument consists of a number of performance areas, with key
performance indicators such as: job outputs, people management (including supervision and
leadership); interpersonal relationships, communication skills, intra-personal relations and punctuality
beyond other factors according to the website of the employee services department of the University of
the Fraser Valley.
This performance management system was designed more than ten years ago and has been
continuously used through years and each employee under goes one performance appraisal a year in the
respective departments of the university. The latest revision to the instrument was done in the year
2011 August.
All performance management matters are documented in the employee services department of
the university and this instrument has been proven to exhibit good results on the performance of the
employees at the university since its inception, according to the university website.
4. 5 Data Capturing
Once all the questionnaires were collected by the researcher, the researcher coded the gathered
data as needed for the study. These scores were then captured by the researcher into a Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet for SPSS analysis. These scores were then imported into SPSS for analysis. The data
analysis will be discussed in the later sections.
4. 6 SPSS Analysis
The data was presented in a manner that allowed for easy analysis and testing using the
Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS). Once the data was imported into a SPSS spreadsheet,
from the Microsoft Excel spread sheet, the researcher proceeded to calculate the necessary leadership
scores as per the respective scoring keys provided along with the questionnaires, by the respective
organizations. The cross tabulations were derived from the SPSS tool, for the different cases as needed
in the study. Once this is done statistical tests were done depending on the need.
V. Ethical Considerations
All the ethical rules of the research participants, has been met in this research study. Bless and
Higson Smith (2000) state that the main rules are: a) voluntary participation b) the right to privacy c)
Freedom and d) Anonymity e) Confidentiality.
Even if the employees are willing, the organization might not permit for data collection. The
organization concerned, though willing to permit the researcher, it might not permit in practice, fearing
that the researcher might waste the valuable time of their employees, during the working hours of the
organization. After all, it is not the obligation of organizations to allow the researchers to experiment
on their employees! But, luckily in the present study, the concerned firm was very favorable to the
researcher allowing him to collect the data from the worker. The managers of the firm permitted to
collect the data strictly for the research purposes only upon the condition that the names of the workers
should not be revealed though the data might be published anonymously and this was all in accordance
with the organizational policies and rules.
Another ethical point in research is that of confidentiality. This is concerned with using the
collected data for the promised use only and not for some other purposes. Unlike in the case of
anonymity, in confidentiality the researcher could identify the respondent based on her response, but
should not reveal the data in public. The respondents must be assured that the data collected from them
must be used for the intended purpose only and not for something else, that could damage them in
some or the other way.
The data collected for this research didn‟t involve any confidential information to great degree, so
luckily the researcher managed to collect the data from the workers of the firm with no difficulty. In order not to
take away the valuable time of the workers, and not to disrupt the work of the firm, as advised by the managers
of the firm, the researcher visited the workers during the time of lunch breaks and collected the data with no or
minimal possible interruption. The researcher believes that, during this research work no one was affected
against the ethics of research and privacy.
Question One
Q1 - There will be significant variance among respondent‟s educational qualifications in terms of performance
The result of the One Way ANOVA test given above is not significant. Hence we accept the statement
–“there will be significant variance among respondent‟s educational qualifications in terms of performance”. It
implies that the employees with lesser education give a different performance then those who are relatively
more educated (with a degree).
Question Two
Q2 - There will be no significant variance among respondents experience in terms of performance
The above result of the One Way ANOVA test is at a significant level and it contradicts the statement
that – “there will be no significant variance among respondents experience in terms of performance”. Hence, we
conclude that the performance of the employees is dependent on their work experience.
VII. Findings
The findings of this research study are presented in this section. 1) The study shows that the
performance exhibited by the employees varies due to their educational qualifications. The general trend is that
with increasing educational qualifications the performance of the employees will decline. But, those who have
only the higher secondary education perform better than those who have completed only the secondary
education and this is an exception to the general rule in the middle. 2) The study indicates that the performance
of the employees gradually increases with their experience and after an experience of 20 years the performance
is again getting lower. This might be due to the fact that the employees lose interest in their work for having
done their work for a long time and they feel sense of boredom in the work and there by perform lesser.
VIII. Discussions
This section is going to discuss, how the findings of this research work are relating to the other
findings already established in the literature. It is good news that that are no contradicting findings out
of this study and all the finding are in congruent with the facts already established.
a) The study shows that the performance exhibited by the workers varies due to their educational qualifications.
The general trend is that with increasing educational qualifications the performance of the workers will decline.
This finding of the study is in agreement with the findings of, Ben and Camilus (2012). It should be noted that
this result is out of the study on the laborers and not the white color professionals.
b) The study indicates that the performance of the employees gradually increases with their experience and after
an experience of 20 years the performance is again getting lower. With growing experience in a job, the
employees learn almost all the knacks concerned with the job and nothing much remains to the learned. In the
early stages of doing a job, there are many things to learn and individuals are curious to things and they will
show interest on the job. But, when everything has been explored, repeating the same job again and again, gives
the sense of boredom in the minds of the employees and this might affect on their performance negatively. Due
to more involvement they lose interest in their jobs. This is just like the newly married couple showing more
interest toward their spouse and later on the levels of interest will gradually decrease. Another factor is that after
20 years of experience the employees turn older and this in turn might affect their performance and this fact is in
proved especially by the study of, Quinn, T. J. et al., (2011).
X. Conclusions
This is to conclude that the two variables chosen for this study - Education and Work-
Experience - indeed have their respective influence on the performance of the workers. With change in
any one of these two factors -Education and Work-Experience – will bring out a change in the
performance of the worker. The study shows that with increase in the Work-Experience the workers
tend to exhibit relatively better performance but, in the case of Education it is otherwise. When these
factors increase greatly then the performance is found to decline even more – on the sample studied.
References
[1]. Andrew J. Dubrin, (2009), Leadership: Research Findings, Practice and Skills, 5 Ed, Houghton Mufiilin co., Boston, USA.
[2]. Ahiazu, A. I. (1989). The "Theory A" system of work organization for the modern African workplace. International Studies of
Management and Organization, 19(1), 6-27.
[3]. Ahmadi, A.A., Jalilian, H.J., Salamzadeh, Y., Saeidpour, B. and Daraei, M. (2012). Intellectual Capital and New Product
Development Performance in Production Firms: A Case Study of Kermanshah Production Firms. Global Business and
Management Research: An International Journal 4(1), 15-27.
[4]. Ahmadi, A.A., Ahmadi F., & Shakeri S., (2011). The survey of relationship between Intellectual capital(IC) and Organizational
performance (OP) within the National Iranian South Oil Company. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business
3(10), 135-143.
[5]. Ahangar, R.G. (2011). The relationship between intellectual capital and financial performance: An empirical investigation in an
Iranian company. African Journal of Business Management 5(1), 88-95.
[6]. Al-Dujaili, M.A. (2012). Influence of Intellectual Capital in the Organizational Innovation. International Journal of Innovation,
Management and Technology 3(2), 128-135.
[7]. Allameh, S.M., Abbasi S., & Shokrani S.A.R. (2010). The Mediating Role of Organizational Learning Capability between
Intellectual Capital and Job Satisfaction. European Journal of Social Sciences 17(1), 125-136.
[8]. Amiri, A.N., Jandaghi, G., & Ramezan, M. (2011). An Investigation to the Impact of Intellectual Capital on Organizational
Innovation. European Journal of Scientific Research 64 (3), 472-477
[9]. Belal A. Kaifi, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba (2010), “Transformational Leadership of Afghans and Americans: A Study of Culture, Age
and Gender”, Journal of Service Science & Management, doi:10.4236/jssm.2010.31019 .
[10]. Bless. C and Higson-Smith. C (2000), Fundamentals of Social Research Methods (3ed.), Lusaka, Juta Education (Pvt) Ltd.
[11]. Bontis, N. (2000). Assessing Knowledge Assets: A Review of the Models Used to Measure Intellectual Capital. Framework Paper
00-01, Queen‟s University at Kingston. Canada. Published in Queen‟s Management Research Centre for Knowledge-Based
Enterprises.
[12]. Bontis, N. (2001). Managing Organizational Knowledge by Diagnosing Intellectual Capital: Framing and Advancing the State of
the Field. McMaster University. Institute for Intellectual Capital Research Inc. (IICR). Hamilton, Ontario. Idea Group Publishing.
[13]. Cabrita, M., & Bontis, N. (2008). Intellectual capital and business performance in the Portuguese banking industry. Int. J.
Technology Management 43, Nos. 1-3, 212-237.